


Gloaming

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Girls Kissing, Grinding, Healing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Anshi’s not used to seeing the stars when she’s on her back." Anshi finds light with Utena.
Relationships: Himemiya Anthy/Tenjou Utena
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Gloaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cjburggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjburggie/gifts).



Anshi can see the stars from the bed.

The windows are enormous. They start from the flat of the floor and climb up, up, up, tapering into curving distance as the glass shifts and colors into the shape of the rose that tints the light to the color of Utena’s hair left loose across the sheets around them. Sometimes Utena stands at the glass, one hand held up to touch her fingertips to the transparence so the glimmer of starlight flickers to fire at the ring binding the third finger of her hand. Anshi is content to watch from the bed, her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her body caught by the soft of the mattress and her gaze turned upwards, trailing that arching height to seek out the light that hangs in the sky overhead.

She’s not used to seeing the stars when she’s on her back.

A huff of air spills against the side of her throat, sketching the outline of a laugh too warm to hold itself to its given form. “Himemiya?” Utena’s words are clear even if her voice is soft with breathless heat; Anshi feels the shape of them at the back of her neck, humming a caress across the texture of her skin as the sound echoes through her body and into the marrow of her bones. Utena lifts her head, freeing her hand from its careless weight against the sheets so she can shove back the curtain of her hair falling over Anshi’s nightgown. “Are you okay?”

“Mm,” Anshi hums, and raises her own hand to replace the hasty effort of Utena’s fingers with the deliberate intent of her own. “I’m fine, Utena-sama.”

Utena laughs again. Anshi can see the flash of her teeth against the flush of her lips; the room is so bright the shadow at Utena’s pale cheeks is visible too, murmuring a promise of the color stripped to silver light by the glimmer of faraway stars. “Do you really have to call me that?” Utena lowers her head to rest at Anshi’s shoulder, as easy in the intimacy as in the drape of her arm across Anshi’s waist. Her fingertips catch at delicate embroidery, tug at intricate lace. “It seems so silly when we’re like this.”

Anshi looks upward, past the echoing cavern of space towering above them, through the leading of the window and the tint of the glass. The stars form the shape of constellations, fracturing from their known forms and into new creations, friends with names hidden in the silence of her own mind. Her fingers work, tensing only for the silk-smooth of Utena’s hair to slide past her grip and form a caress from a fist. “I must, Utena-sama.”

Utena heaves a sigh. Anshi feels the heat of the breath spill across her throat and topple under the collar of her nightgown to shiver water-slick across the shape of her body and against the grain of her skin. “Well, I’m not going to try to tell you what you can’t do.” Utena’s elbow dents a warning into the mattress beneath Anshi’s shoulders. By the time she has pushed herself upright Anshi has returned focus to her gaze, has reapplied a smile to her lips. “You get enough of that from everyone else, after all.”

Anshi turns the corners of her mouth upward. “Yes, Utena-sama.”

“You know you don’t need to agree with me all the time,” Utena tells her. Her hand lifts from Anshi’s waist to catch at a lock of dark hair and push it back behind Anshi’s ear. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Anshi looks up at Utena’s face. The room is dim, the harsh edges of reality softened by the weight of night outside the expanse of windows shaping the space around them, but she can see the soft at Utena’s mouth by starlight, can pick out the shadow of pale brows drawn together to a crease of concern. She draws a breath, feeling the ease of the motion even under the gentle weight of Utena’s fingers at her cheek, and her hand lifts from her side, rising from the tangle of the sheets to find the fall of Utena’s loose hair. The weight presses against her fingers, resisting the urging of her hand as she smoothes a lock back over Utena’s shoulder and watches the movement of her fingers instead of meeting the unflinching attention in Utena’s eyes.

“I do,” Anshi says, breathing the words to a whisper she can trap between the part of her lips, can hold safe in the shadows of her mouth. Her fingers slide into Utena’s hair. The motion of her thumb brushes the back of Utena’s neck to slip along the bare skin above the collar of her pajamas. Anshi fills her lungs with air, deep like she’s drawing breath against plunging beneath the surface of the sea before she shuts her eyes and tastes the unfamiliar weight of truth against her tongue. “I want this.”

It feels like freedom, like taking a tentative step through an open door that has always been locked and barred before. Anshi’s body shudders with the force of it, flinching from the punishment she knows too well will follow, but when the blow comes it is gentle, Utena’s fingers brushing her face with care instead of contempt.

“Okay,” Utena says. Her exhale quivers in her throat, forming to a laugh Anshi recognizes by feel instead of sound. “I’m glad.”

The words would be judgment in another voice, the condescension of a teacher encouraging a recalcitrant pupil. But Utena’s tone is easy, sweet with relief and gentle on her own natural sincerity, and Anshi quakes with the shock of that even before Utena’s thumb braces at the back of her ear and Utena lowers her head to brush her lips to the shape of Anshi’s surrendering mouth.

The contact is tentative. Even now, with days and weeks of experience, there is something clumsy in Utena’s movement, in the touch of her hand at Anshi’s neck and the uncertain weight of her mouth. She kisses with an enthusiasm that misaligns their lips, that sometimes catches her teeth at Anshi’s and sometimes surges suddenly forward into startling intimacy; and Anshi answers, her body flushing with more than the passive acceptance that is all she has ever offered before, that is all anyone has ever desired of her. Anshi knows what it is to be kissed; but when her hand tightens in Utena’s hair her grip is just as hasty, and when she parts her lips to touch her tongue to Utena’s mouth the action is awkward with an innocence she thought long-since lost beyond her keeping.

Kissing Utena is a mess of fumbling hands, bruised lips and struggling elbows and breathless apologies, and Anshi can feel herself responding more to their mutual stumbling than to the most polished efforts that have spent themselves to her unresisting acceptance. Her breath comes faster, catching in her throat and pulling in her chest; her skin glows, sparkling with an intensity that fixes her to her body instead of forcing her away from it. She acts on instinct, moving faster than conscious thought, until the heat of bare skin against her fingertips shocks her as much as it catches Utena’s breath against her lips.

“Oh,” Utena says, gasping with a heat that Anshi doesn’t need interpreted. “Oh, Himemiya.”

Anshi blinks. She’s turned over onto her side to face Utena, who has fallen back against the division between the two halves of their shared bed. Their legs are tangled together, Anshi’s movements held still as much by Utena’s knee as by the binding weight of the sheets wound around her feet, but she doesn’t feel trapped, doesn’t feel stifled. The heat in the air illuminates her chest, fills her veins with flame that warms without scorching, and when she looks down to find her fingers laid across the bare skin of Utena’s waist she feels the recognition of instinct jolt straight through her body.

Utena breathes in when Anshi moves her hand, catching a soft, helpless note at the back of her throat as Anshi’s thumb traces across her skin and fingers dip over the rise of her hip. It’s an easy noise to understand when Anshi can feel the resonance of it echoing through the rising tension in her own body, and when her fingertips slide beneath the waistband of Utena’s pajamas Utena groans unmistakable encouragement and tips to fall to her back across the bed. Her hair puddles beneath her, rose petals tumbling across the sheets, and Anshi braces herself on an elbow and looks down to watch response play across Utena’s transparent expression as her touch ventures further.

It’s strange to watch Utena’s face, to see Anshi’s own reactions reflected more clearly than they ever appear in the stifled realism of a mirror. Anshi can feel the softness of her own mouth, can feel the neutrality she has learned too well to break free of with no more than the impulse of her own new-formed want, but Utena has no such reservation. Her head tilts to the downward slide of Anshi’s fingers, her lips part on a groan the hotter for how unstudied the sound is as it spills from her chest. One of her hands reaches for the sheets, clutching against the silken soft of them as she tips onto her side, her body rocking in to seek out the force of Anshi’s fingers; and Anshi presses her touch down, parting the heat between Utena’s thighs with her fingertips, and Utena’s head falls back as her lashes drop over the hazing bright of her gaze.

Anshi watches Utena’s face. There are other options, other directions her gaze could drift: to the undone button at the top of Utena’s pajamas, or to the flat of the taut stomach laid bare by the rumple of fabric pooling around Utena’s waist, or farther, to the angle of Anshi’s wrist flexing with the effort of her fingers coaxing clinging heat from the shadows of Utena’s body. But it is her face, soft with surprise and dreamy on heat, that holds Anshi’s attention with unswerving certainty as she watches proof of the pleasure as foreign to her as control cast girlish features into the grace of a fast-dawning womanhood.

There is a moment, with Utena’s head tipped sideways at the pillow, her eyes shut and mouth heavy-soft with the bloom of heat, that Anshi feels recognition like a blow against her chest. It shivers along her spine, knocking her breath from her lungs and stilling her motion, and for a heartbeat she loses track of where she is, of who she is; as if the same mirror that has granted her own seeming to Utena has returned her to a darker resemblance, giving her the form of the monstrosity that curses her nights more effectively than any witch. Anshi’s hand tightens at the sheets beneath her, her hair suddenly feels suffocating and heavy where it falls around her shoulders. She cannot breathe; her lungs refuse to fill around the sword of awareness that has run her through. Anshi stares at the girl beneath her, feeling the darkness at her back, the shadows reaching to drag her within them; and then the girl opens her eyes, and blinks hard as she looks up, and she is Utena again, too entirely herself to ever share space with a reflection of someone else.

“Himemiya,” Utena says, and pushes up from the bed in a rush that entirely disregards the press of Anshi’s fingers still against her in exchange for the first crease of concern against the line of her forehead. “What’s wrong?”

Anshi shakes her head as Utena’s fingers catch at a lock of her hair to push it away from her face. “Nothing, Utena-sama.” Her voice is as level as she can make it, smoothed to polished perfection; but there must be a crack, or the panicked speed of her heart is too much to hide, because Utena frowns at her in spite of this attempted reassurance.

“ _Something’s _ wrong,” she says, too self-assured for Anshi to even attempt an argument with the truth; and Utena’s eyes drop from Anshi’s face to draw over the rest of her as if she is looking for the obvious tell of a limp or an open wound to give a reason for the pain her naÏve certainty senses without understanding. Anshi bows her head to let her hair fall forward in front of her face, and it is then that Utena seizes a breath bright with epiphany.

“Oh!” She can’t know the truth, can have no conception of the reality of Anshi’s anxiety; but Anshi still looks up, startled into attention in spite of herself by the force of Utena’s exclamation. Utena is looking at her when she looks up, her eyes wide and mouth slightly open on the shock of her realization.

“I’m so sorry,” she exhales. “I didn’t mean to be selfish.” Anshi blinks, caught off her own balance by this unanticipated turn, but Utena is reaching to cup a hand at the back of her head and she doesn’t have time to decide if she wants to reply before Utena is leaning in to press her forehead to Anshi’s in a gesture of apology perfectly clear even if the reasoning for it is lost to the shadows. “I just forgot myself for a minute.”

“Ah,” Anshi says, although she still doesn’t know what, exactly, Utena is apologizing for. Her smile comes easy and practiced. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, Utena-sama.”

Utena shakes her head. “I  _ will _ worry about it!” Her hand drops from Anshi’s hair to her waist, her fingers spreading wide to support the other’s weight; it’s the only warning Anshi gets before Utena is pushing against the bed and toppling their balance over onto the mattress. Anshi lands on her back, her hair spilled beneath her and her fingers still pressing at the heat between Utena’s thighs, and Utena’s knee lands between her own to spread Anshi’s legs wider around the lean flex of it.

“It’ll be better like this,” she says with a confidence more of personality than of any possible experience. She ducks her head to look down at their position and braces one hand at the sheets to steady herself as she adjusts her balance leaning over Anshi. “We won’t have to take turns this way.”

Anshi can’t answer. Her thoughts are spinning, her eyes are wide; the weight of someone else’s shadow is suffocating her, blacking out the shape of the room and the identity of her partner until all she can feel is stifling heat, the threat of a body larger and heavier than hers leaning in to crush the breath from her lungs and trap her in an eternity of humid friction. She feels her chest work, hears the rasp of the breath she drags past her parted lips; and her hands tighten, her fingers flexing in unthinking bid for traction. Her hand fists at the sheets beneath her, pulling against proof of a bed and not a couch, and her thumb slides, her touch pushing inadvertent pressure across flushed skin. The form over her tenses, shoulders and thighs and bracing fingers: and gasps, the sound so high and unmistakably feminine that the bars of Anshi’s closing mind shatter on impact. She blinks, forced back to the present by the shock of unfamiliarity, and over her Utena’s head comes forward to weight her forehead hard at Anshi’s shoulder.

“Himemiya,” she pants, her voice trembling as much over the sound of Anshi’s name as her body is quaking with the friction of Anshi’s touch. Her knee draws up, sliding higher between Anshi’s thighs, but the motion is clumsy instead of practiced, and even when Utena leans down to trust more of her weight to Anshi’s body there is space to breathe, room to twist away and free from the curves of her slim figure. Anshi stares up at the ceiling, her eyes finding forgotten light, returning to the flicker of the starlight pooling across her body and Utena’s together; and she eases her hand at the sheets, and when she moves it is to reach up and hold Utena closer to her instead of pulling her away.

They lack elegance. Utena is awkward in her own responsiveness, giving up her vague attempts at rhythm for the least shift in Anshi’s fingers pressing over the heat of her body; Anshi is caught by the stars, her attention fixed somewhere between the slide of her questing fingers and pinned beneath the weight of Utena’s leg grinding between her own. But they keep moving, Utena reaching for a grip at the tangled bedsheets and Anshi bracing Utena with one arm so she can work the fingers of her other hand with greater force, and as the sound of breathing pitches towards heat Anshi is startled to realize her own lips are parted, that it is the sound of her gasps as much as Utena’s that is spilling free beneath the glow of the starlight. Her knees are tilting wider, her thighs softening with an instinct she has never before drawn on, until when Utena rocks herself forward Anshi finds herself arching upward before she has thought, her body curving as a sound too low and hot to call anything but a moan parts her lips. Her face heats, burning with the sudden embarrassment of her involuntary response, but she doesn’t have time to speak before Utena is groaning into her shoulder and her hips are tilting down to seek out the press of Anshi’s fingers.

“Oh wow,” Utena gasps. “Oh, wow, Himemiya.” She’s moving faster, rocking herself closer as fast as Anshi comes up to meet her, her shoulder straining with the effort as she pulls at the hold she’s managed at the top of the mattress. Anshi is trembling, her body quivering with a force she couldn’t halt if she wished to, if she were commanded to; and Utena is hot against her fingers, slick with the same desire that Anshi feels glowing between her open thighs. Anshi gazes up, her vision blurring to pinpricks of glittering illumination, and she slides her hand down, flexing her wrist as her fingers dip and curl. Her touch finds wet heat, soft and liquid with welcome, and then Anshi’s fingers are sliding up between Utena’s thighs, and Utena is choking on the heat of an inhale at her shoulder.

Anshi flexes her touch, her heart pounding with dizzy force as she presses inside Utena, as she offers the resistance of her fingers, and at her neck Utena moans, spilling voice to the collar of Anshi’s nightgown as the full length of her body tightens with a wave of irrepressible sensation. Her thighs flex, straining against Anshi’s leg between them as Utena shudders, and against the helpless motion of Utena’s body Anshi’s own curves up, up, up, rising into a trembling arc as her eyes fill with light and her mind surrenders to the eclipse of pleasure.

Anshi returns slowly, recollecting herself from the fragments of starlight into which her awareness was thrown with slow intention. Utena is against her, one arm thrown wide over Anshi’s waist and the other still draped over their heads, but the tension in her body is utterly spent to leave her languid and heavy-limbed. Anshi wonders if she isn’t asleep, or at least drifting towards rest with the dedicated intention of satisfaction, but when she shifts her hand to slide her fingers free of Utena’s pajamas Utena stirs enough to turn her head at Anshi’s shoulder and sigh an exhale against her neck.

“You don’t mind if I stay here do you?” Utena lifts her hand from Anshi’s waist to wave in the general direction of the other side of the bed before letting her arm fall under its own weight once again. “I’m so comfortable. Are you?”

Anshi looks up, her gaze drawing past the curtain of Utena’s hair spilling over her shoulders, past the shadow of the rose fit into the frame of the window opening out onto the night sky: to the stars, still flickering as brilliantly as before, shining with a light unaltered by the prickle of warmth still lingering in Anshi’s limbs or the distracted attention that still hazes her vision. Utena’s legs are tangled with her own, pressing into a greater warmth than has ever been offered by the sheets now kicked loose to hang over the edge of the bed; her arm pins the thin of Anshi’s nightgown to the shape of her body, her head pushes Anshi’s shoulder down against the welcome of the mattress. Anshi is turned half onto her side, one foot freed of the blankets and another caught beneath them; her hair is tangled beneath her, her body flushed with a glow that is sticking sweat-heat to her skin where the extra burden of Utena is sprawled across her. Anshi lies on the bed, pressed to the sheets by Utena’s weight draping against her, her limbs shaky and her vision scattered; and she raises her hand, lifting the weight of her spread fingers from the bed so she can touch them to a heavy lock of Utena’s hair.

“Yes,” she says, her voice careful on the fragility of unfamiliar honesty. “Yes, Utena-sama. I’m very comfortable.”


End file.
